TIME TO GO BACK TO THE GRASS ROOTS
Hightower, Jim
Time to Go Back to the Grass Roots BY JIM HIGHTOWER The only way we, as a country, are going to reach the next century with any measure of pride, prosperity, and hope for the future is if we...
...People know what they need...
...People aren't tired of government action...
...We're talking about faith in a system going bust...
...Instead of trying to share power with Republicans, we should be taking power for the millions of working people who make up the majority of this country...
...It's time we used that perspective as the measuring rod for public policy...
...they're tired of government not acting for the general good...
...Jim Hightower is the elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner...
...I'm talking about a woman in Greenville, Texas, who is a farm and business owner, a pillar of the community, and a county official...
...Rather than beating around the bush, we've got to beat Bush on issues that really matter to workaday Americans...
...Our political institutions have to be democratized as well, to respond to the real needs of the people and to encourage their active participation in creating policy...
...Time to Go Back to the Grass Roots BY JIM HIGHTOWER The only way we, as a country, are going to reach the next century with any measure of pride, prosperity, and hope for the future is if we embrace social justice, economic opportunity, and environmental responsibility as the cornerstones of all public policy for the next ten years...
...What can we do about it...
...Instead, when her bank was taken over by the FDIC and then sold to another bank, the new bankers put a lock on her life savings and threatened to call in her business loans...
...And now the tree is decaying...
...When she heard the local bank was about to go belly up, she left her savings in certificates of deposit in the bank even as some of her friends and neighbors were generating a mini-run on the institution...
...Our hard-earned tax dollars should go to rebuilding our economy, society, and environment from the ground up...
...They know how to build...
...Instead of forcing each woman, man, and child to pay out $2,000 to pay off the bad debts and extravagance of a greedy few in the savings-and-loan crisis, we should require those who went to the party to foot their share of the bill...
...The future for most politicians is no further away than the next election...
...Ronald Reagan and George Bush sapped this country's economic base to feed the fantasies of a few high rollers...
...Too many Democrats have joined their Republican counterparts in seeking the approval of the money establishment while ignoring the plight of ordinary working people...
...We need to democratize our institutions...
...That includes the Federal Reserve Board, whose tight-money policy is run for a relatively few bondholders and helped get us into this financial mess in the first place...
...We have to go back to the grass roots, feeding the economy at that level and nourishing democratic participation...
...We need to make financing and innovative community-based institutions available to help young farmers and new enterprises, to provide low-cost housing, affordable child-care and prenatal care, innovative schooling and job training...
...She believed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or a new bank coming in would deal fairly with her as she had with her home bank for more than thirty years...
...We're not just talking about a system going bust...
...Federal policy in the 1980s polished the shiny top leaves of the tree while ignoring the roots...
...People are wondering if it's time to start stuffing their mattresses with their life savings...
...For most Americans, however, the future is a matter of decades, pension plans, retirement income, affordable health care, farms and businesses passed from one generation to the next, security for their children and grandchildren...
...That's where our future is built...
...I am not talking about Donald and Ivana Trump fighting each other and their creditors over mega-millions...
...The quick fixes we've been offered in the last two years are all premised on a mortgaged future...
...We just have to give them the tools...
...For the past ten years, the Democratic Party has been largely a party of accommodation rather than opposition...
Vol. 54 • November 1990 • No. 11
